Meta Search Engines

A meta search engine searches multiple search engines from a single search page.

Meta search engines work in various ways. With some, a single, simultaneous search retrieves results from multiple sources, usually with the duplicates removed. Others offer a separate search of multiple content sources, allowing you to select the source(s) you want for each search.

When a single simultanous search is offered, only a limited maximum muber of pages from each source are returned. The cut-off may be determined by the number of pages retrieved, or by the amount of time the meta engine spends at the other sites. Results retrieved by these engines can be highly relevant, since they are usually grabbing the first items from the relevancy-ranked list of results returned by the individual search engines. Keep in mind that complex searches, such as field searches, are usually not available.

Dogpile is an example of a meta search engine.

When to use a meta search engine

When you want to retrieve a relatively small number of relevant results
When your topic is obscure
When you are not having luck finding what you want
When you want the convenience of searching a variety of different content sources from one search page

Using Meta Search Engines

Each meta search engine is a little different, though you'll find that many use the same sources, for example Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Ask. It makes sense that meta engines use the most famous, well-indexed and comprehensive sources for their results. The difference is often in the search interface or in the presentation of the results.

Let's look at an example. Let's say you're interested in the effect of television violence on children. Here is a search for violence television children. Notice how the sources of the results are placed with each page returned with this search.

tip! You can see a list of additional meta engines by visiting Internet Search Engines.

It's well worth trying out meta engines, especially if you aren't having luck with Google, Bing, and other famous search engines. Sometimes a meta engine will turn up results that aren't as easily found when you use one engine at a time.

Let's move on to a consideration of concept categorizing search engines >>.

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